Category Archives: PC Ireland

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland — A Lot To Look Forward Too

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As tempting as it is to open this post with the line “In a neat little town they call Belfast…” I will resist that temptation.    But on Monday at 7:00 PM local time the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will convene in that city.

While it does not appear that there will be webcasting, they will be on Twitter and providing tweets from twitter.com/pciassembly.  (I have not yet seen a hash search term yet for twitter.  Maybe we can use #pciga09.) The agenda for the assembly is on line as are the reports.  And the incoming Moderator, the Rev. Stafford Carson, has a personal blog on which he has been providing interesting little vignettes into his days leading up to the Assembly.

Clearly the hot topic on the Assembly agenda (4:00 PM Tuesday to be exact) is the situation with the Presbyterian Mutual Society.  You can check out my earlier post for more details, but this affiliated, but not church controlled, investment society collapsed last fall when requests for withdraws exceeded the cash on hand and the value of the property that had been invested in.  The Society itself got its stakeholders to agree to “wind down” operations in order to eventually get the greatest potential return from the properties it was invested in, but it appears it will still be substantially less than before the global economic collapse and there are now reports of delays.  The church, the Society, and Northern Irish politicians have petitioned the British Government to guarantee the deposits, but without success yet.  In fact, the appeal to the government was noted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who added the following to their Church and Society Report:

39. Note with concern the impact of the collapse of Presbyterian Mutual and urge the UK Government and devolved executive in Northern Ireland to take urgent action to resolve the situation.

This support was welcomed by the current Moderator, the Rev. Donald Patton, in an official press release.

There is still considerable question about what the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will, or can, do about the situation.  There was even a question whether there would be anything more than a report on the situation as noted in the first agenda:

[Tuesday June 2] 4.00pm MUTUAL SOCIETY COLLAPSE ‘A TREMENDOUS CHALLENGE’ — General Board/Moderators Advisory Committee (p23-32 & p106)

The report describes the PMS going into administration as ‘a tremendous
challenge to many loyal members’ and details how the church has
responded through a chronology of meetings and statements up to the
handing over of a petition to Northern Ireland MPs on 1 April. Attached
resolutions call the Church to continued ‘prayer and concern for all
involved.’

Note that since the main reports go to press in early April the General
Assembly publishes ‘Supplementary Reports’ on the Tuesday morning of
Assembly week with more up to date information. It is expected that
these will contain a more up to date report and additional resolutions.

But Moderator Patton has said in a BBC interview, and published on the web site, that a debate will be held.  He says “There will be a full debate… a speech and questions. It will be an uncomfortable debate because of the anxiety and emotion.”

And many stakeholders in the Society, who feel betrayed by the church, will be protesting outside the opening session Monday evening.  The stakeholders’ concerns are expressed in a Belfast Telegraph article:

Mervyn Redmond, a spokesman for the Shore Street PMS Action Group in
Donaghadee, said: “We feel betrayed — once by the PMS which assured us that
our savings would not be at risk, and even more by the Presbyterian Church
which has failed to provide any meaningful support for us since our savings
were frozen last autumn.”

He added: “We and our families and forebears have always turned to the Church
in times of serious difficulty, but during this desperate situation we are
reduced to confronting the Church leaders and elders because they have
refused to take a compassionate and fruitful initiative.”

A lot of people will be watching to see what the GA figures out to do with this situation.  We will find out at the Order of the Day on Tuesday.  Debate is docketed for 90 minutes.  Keep watching Twitter.

While there are other important pieces of Assembly business involving the voice in state education and a “response to the report of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the Past” so far the Presbyterian Mutual Society situation has dominated the news and blog discussion.  For a bit more on these check out the official Assembly preview.

Stay tuned…  It will be interesting.

New Official Blogging And Blogging Officials

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There have been a couple of notable additions to the world of Presbyterian Blogging in the last month or two that I wanted to pass on to you.

First, it appears that we will have another blogging Moderator:  The Rev. Stafford Carson of First Presbyterian Church of Portadown, Northern Ireland, has begun a pastor’s blog.  (h/t Sean Michael Lucas)  For a G.A. Junkie, this will become more interesting in early June when Rev. Carson will be installed as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  We will have to see the balance that he strikes between the parish and the denominational work.  If nothing else, I am curious if the work of the Moderator of the PC Ireland takes as much time as the Moderator of the GA of the PCUSA who has broken his moderatorial blogging out from his personal and parish blogging.

(And we are still waiting for an RSS feed from the Church of Scotland for their Moderator’s Blog.)

Second, for a while now we have had the entertaining and enlightening blog Being Presbyterian by Colin Carmichael from the main office of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  Now, while more of a news feed than a blog, there is PC-Connect Daily to which you can subscribe by either e-mail or RSS.  Interesting stuff from a Presbyterian branch that is taking new technology seriously.

Finally, a blog that is not new itself but is new to me…  I have been doing some research to try to get myself up to speed on the Presbyterian Church in Australia.  I’ll get that packaged up at some point, but in looking through the various sites I have found very little in the way of RSS feeds and e-mail updates available.  To some extent this may be due to an interesting de-centralization of that branch to the state level.  But one interesting RSS feed I did find was for Presbyterian Youth in Victoria.  It is pretty much a news feed with upcoming events but some are interesting, like the Fuelled Training Day and the Short Course on Youth Ministry.  My youngest was interested in their summer camp since that is our winter, such as winter is in Southern California anyway.

Speaking of Youth, I see that the announcement for the 2009 National Youth Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been posted.  Since this event is Web 2.0 intensive I would expect an official blog for it like the NYA 2008 blog, but I can’t locate it yet. But keep watching because I am sure it will appear soon.

Hope For The Presbyterian Mutual Society Stakeholders?

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In the spirit of “All politics is local,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government has bailed out a Scottish building society in his previous district.  The government arranged for the failing Dunfermline Building Society, a financial institution like an American Savings and Loan, to be taken over by The Nationwide Building Society with an infusion of £1.5bn from the Treasury.  (BBC Article)

While news in its own right, especially since Dunfermline was the largest Scottish building society, this raises the hopes of those invested in the failed Presbyterian Mutual Society in Ireland and might put added pressure on Mr. Brown.  As the article from the Belfast Telegraph says:

The [Ulster Unionist Party’s] deputy leader Danny Kennedy said Mr Brown will be accused of
favouritism if he does nothing for the Mutual’s investors after saving the
Dunfermline Building Society, which is in his Kircaldy constituency in
Scotland.

And it goes on to quote Mr. Kennedy

“An intervention of this scale for a local building society is a perfect
template for action over the Presbyterian Mutual. What is sauce for the
Dunfermline goose is also sauce for the Presbyterian Mutual gander,” said Mr
Kennedy. “I now call on the Prime Minister to move quickly to protect the
savings of Presbyterian Mutual investors.”

In another article from the Belfast Telegraph a letter from the Treasury Minister Ian Pearson is quoted saying “The Government is keen to ensure a sucessful resolution to this matter.”  That, and a quote from Mr. Brown in the previously mentioned article, “It is important to recognise that throughout this whole crisis, everyone who
has been saving in a UK institution has been protected,” seem to give hope of Government help for the Mutual Society.  However, both articles note that at the present time it is only discussion and no action.

Presbyterian Mutual Society To Wind Down

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Well the shareholder vote is in and by a large majority they have accepted the administrator’s plan for an orderly wind-down of the Presbyterian Mutual Society that is related to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  The shareholders voted on five proposals related to the disposition of the Society and each passed with over 90% approval by the shareholders and with over 88% approval of the creditors.  The PDF copy of the document announcing the results and reporting the vote tallies is available from the Mutual Society.  Additional details are in a Reuters piece.

As I mentioned last time, there are moves to have the British Government back the Society and while no decisions have been made there, it is reported that an agreement in principle has been reached for a meeting with the top political leaders of Norther Ireland.  This is noted in an op-ed piece that the Moderator of the PCI, the Rt. Rev. Donald Patton, wrote for the New Statesman.  The Moderator talks about the situation, the role of the church at this time, and concludes with this paragraph:

Christian faith is being tested, and, just as the principle of
mutuality in financial terms has been under severe pressure, so the
bond of caring fellowship is under strain. At such a crucial time, it
is vital for all in the Church ‘…to carry each other’s burdens and in
this way…fulfil the law of Christ.’ (St Paul’s letter to the Galatians
chapter 6, verse 2)

Update On The Presbyterian Church In Ireland — Moderator Designate And Mutual Society

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I was trying to decide if there was enough here to spend the time writing this post, but I decided that I should close the loop on the Moderator election and do a status update on the Presbyterian Mutual Society.

As I already posted, last Tuesday night the Rev. Stafford Carson of First Portadown was selected by the presbyteries as the Moderator Designate for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  What is unusual is that this year both the position and the candidate come with a bit of baggage and, as would be expected, both came up at yesterday’s news conference.

The Rev. Carson brings with him some history from his church and his theological view point against the ordination of women.  At the press conference he said:

There’s a minority within the Presbyterian Church who have not been
persuaded about the rectitude of the ordination of women and I am among
that minority. We have had really a
truce on the issue for all my ministry in the Church.

The
Church ordains women and those of us who have a conscience about that,
we don’t frustrate or stand in the way of the Church in doing that.
(From The Independent)

He also said that while he would not have a women preach at his church as a matter of conscience he would listen to women clergy at other churches.

In a matter of more current importance he also addressed the collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society.  At the press conference Rev. Carson said that his own church has around £1,000,000 invested in the society.  He emphasized that the church should not stay clear of the crisis, as it initially appeared, but needs to “recover its position with the people” and have a concern for those, primarily the elderly, who lost their life savings in the collapse.  The Belfast Telegraph article also quotes the Moderator Designate as saying he would be willing to go with current Moderator Dr. Donald Patton to a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown to appeal for government help.

Since my last update on the Mutual Society crisis not much progress has been made on the issue, but there have been a flood of calls for help and relief asking the British Government for help.  From within the PC Ireland this includes a letter from the current Moderator asking for government assistance and a letter from 23 former Moderators echoing the request.  While they acknowledge that there is no legal obligation for the government to get involved they invoke the moral obligation.  The Very Reverend John Dunlop is quoted as saying:

Whenever Gordon Brown became prime minister he said he would be guided by the ethics and morals of his father. Now Gordon Brown was raised in a Presbyterian manse, his father was a Presbyterian minister. So Gordon Brown understands what moral and ethical obligations are. It may be that there is no technical legal obligation to help the mutual society but we believe that there is a moral obligation to
help the mutual society.

But the cries for help are coming from several directions:  In an open letter to the church the Moderator encourages signing an on-line petition and circulation of  the printed version asking Gordon Brown for help for all Mutual Societies.  [Side note that this was pretty interesting.  At the Prime Minister’s official web site, Number10, you can create online e-petitions for people to sign.  Don’t know of anything like this at whitehouse.gov yet.]

And it is not just the church asking for help:  Both the Belfast City Council and the top political leaders in Norther Ireland, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, are asking Brown to step in.  The argument is that the government should back the Mutual Societies the same as they do banks.  We will see if they decide to, but this issue has a while to run yet and will certainly be a major one for the Rev. Carson.

Moderator Designate Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland

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Greetings — This post will be in two parts.  Part I will be posted before the vote and then I will add Part II after the vote.  Therefore, if you get this by e-mail or you check your feed reader early you may need to check back if you are interested in the result.

Also, a hat tip to my favorite source of insight into the PCI, Alan in Belfast, for making the connection about one of the candidates.  I’d been keeping up on the vote, but had overlooked the back story.

Part I
In a few hours the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will be voting on the designate for the Moderator of this year’s General Assembly.

Up until a few years ago the process was that the presbyteries met simultaneously and each came up with their own choice with no pre-defined list.  Now there is a list, this year with three nominees, and the presbyteries all on the same evening select their choice from that list.

This year the nominees are:
Rev. Norman Hamilton, O.B.E.: Minister at Ballysillan since 1988, ordained in 1983 and serves on the Church and Society Committee

Rev. Derek McKelvey: Minister at Fisherwick since 1994, ordained in 1971 and has been the convener of the Students’ Bursary Fund and the co-convener of the Strategy for Mission Committee

Rev. Stafford Carson: Minister at First Portadown since 2005, ordained in 1983 and has been the convener of the Review of Theological Education Committee and the Committee re Deacons.  He currently convenes the Resourcing Christians for Ministry Committee and was an administrator at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

Back story #1 (which I have been following and will do an update on in the near future): The collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society.  I expect questions about this to come up at the press conference tomorrow morning.  The current and past Moderators have been injecting themselves into this situation more and more.

Back story #2 (H/T Alan):  I had not made the connection that the Rev. Carson was one of the ministers involved in the Christmas service controversy in Portadown beginning back in 2007.  Briefly, Rev. Carson’s church and neighboring Armagh Road Church have a tradition of doing joint Christmas services with the visiting pastor preaching.  However, in 2007 when the service was to be at First Portadown Rev. Carson would not permit the female pastor of Armagh Road to preach, citing the privilege given to a pastor to approve who may preach at their church, a provision granted in the PC Ireland for those pastors that have scripturally-based objections of conscience to ordaining women.  No compromise could be reached between the churches in 2008 so the service was not held again.  If Rev. Carson is elected this evening, as Alan is predicting, expect some questions on women as clergy tomorrow at the press conference.  There could also be some interesting situations throughout the Moderatorial year.

Part II  And the Moderator designate is…

Well, it looks like Alan in Belfast both broke the story with the results, as well as correctly predicting the outcome in his earlier post.

The 21 presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland this evening selected the Rev. Stafford Carson, pastor of First Portadown, as the moderator designate for the 2009 General Assembly.  Mr. Stafford was selected by ten presbyteries while Mr. Hamilton was selected by six and Mr. McKelvey by five.

I’ll update tomorrow after press releases and stories as well as the traditional news conference.

Bad News From The Presbyterian Mutual Society In Ireland

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Back in the fall when I looked at the impact the current global financial crisis was having on Presbyterian entities I mentioned that the worst hit appeared to be the Presbyterian Mutual Society, an independent financial organization associated with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  Well, this week the news about the Society and its future came out as a pretty bad, but not quite worst-case, scenario, if the members agree with the proposed dissolution.

For background, the Presbyterian Mutual Society was founded as a way for individuals to invest their money in a way which would benefit churches.  However, the Society, in addition to the church loans, also got into commercial real estate and with the sharp drop in property values found itself with holdings worth significantly less than the value of the deposits.  As the individuals looked at the situation they decided to take out their money, there was a run on the bank, and the Society essentially collapsed.  An Administrator was appointed to see what could be done.

Yesterday the Administrator of the Society announced that no source of external help could be found to rescue the organization.  As an alternative, the Administrator is proposing an orderly liquidation of the assets.  The statement says:

The Administrator appointed to the Presbyterian Mutual Society has
written to its members with a series of proposals which, if accepted,
would see an orderly run down of its business over time through a
formal arrangement allowed for under insolvency legislation.

This would have the effect of repaying part of the members’ investments
over a period to be agreed. If the proposals are not accepted, the
Society will have to be placed in liquidation with the likelihood of
members receiving less money back than if they proceeded with the
formal arrangement.

and

He said it was unlikely that the Society in its current form could
continue as a going concern. Although its assets “had not disappeared”,
the reality was that the collapse in the UK property market had
significantly reduced the value of the Society’s commercial property
portfolio and the value of the Society’s security over property in its
loan book.

Given current market conditions, the Society’s assets could not be sold
quickly at a fair value and he therefore proposed the business should
be wound down in a managed and orderly way through a formal arrangement
with its members.

It is now up to the members to accept this proposal.

It is no surprise that there has been significant media coverage and political discussion.  This includes calls from the Norther Ireland government for the UK government to cover the deposits, a suggestion for the society members to wait it out and let the property market recover, and questions about the church’s responsibility for the Society and its investments.

UPDATE:  Later today after posting this another news story came out that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has formed an action group to address the issue.  The group is made up of two past Moderators of the General Assembly and two senior church treasurers.

The members of the Society have until January 30 to return their votes accepting the plan.  We will see what the decision is and if the government steps in to help before than.

Financial Crisis Has Varing Impact On Presbyterian Investment Funds

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The morning news brought word that there was a “run on the bank” at the Presbyterian Mutual Society of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  The main page of the society now has a statement from the Directors of the Society indicating that cash levels have fallen low enough that they are forced to stop accepting withdraws.  It also indicates that they have contacted the government about financial assistance, a point echoed on William Crawley’s BBC blog “Will and Testament.”  From reading through the material it is clear that the Presbyterian Mutual Society is a separate legal entity from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland while still being associated with it and restricting Society membership to PCI members.  Unlike the PC(USA)’s Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program (PILP) the Society holds some of its assets in real estate, not just loans to churches, so the market downturn has had an impact on the net value of the assets.  Being its own legal entity the assets of the PCI are not at risk, but being a Mutual Society there is no government insurance of the deposits.  This just broke today so we will have to see how this develops.

I have been keeping an eye out for statements about financial investments at various Presbyterian branches.  I am not referring to giving, that is a story all to itself, but rather the investments held by governing bodies including pension funds.  So far there has been very little reported, as least that I have found.  In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) the Board of Pensions has reported, both in their publication and the PNS article, that while the investments are down, benefits are safe.  I have seen no similar report from the Foundation, although I would expect that in their annual report.  I will offer that from our Synod there is one program that will probably not be able to access any of their designated Foundation funds because the value has fallen beneath the “floor,” but providentially a large chunk of the general assets were in short-term interest bearing investments and we have ridden through it with little loss of principle.  Likewise, PILP is, to my understanding, in cash instruments and deposits are in CD-like instruments so redemptions can be forecast more easily.  Whether churches will be able to make their loan payments is another questions.  As for other Presbyterian branches, I’ve been keeping an eye out but have not spotted news yet.

While these are recent developments there is a much longer term story out there as well.  A while back the Presbyterian Church in America established the PCA Investor’s Fund that appears like it operated much like PILP at its founding in 1985.  Interested persons or groups would invest in the fund and the money would be loaned out for church planting, expansion, or redeveloperment.  It is interesting that a news note in the Winter 1999/2000 Multiply Magazine lists 3-year deposits paying the substantially above-market rate of 8.00%.  (Current PILP rates are 3.20% for the same term.)  A Christianity Today article (July 2008 print, August 2008 on-line) describes the decline and fall of the investment company.  It was divested from the PCA in 1994 but kept its Presbyterian ties, even with its merger with Cornerstone Ministries Investments in 2000.  Shortly after the merger the company began diversifying its portfolio of assets into riskier non-church real estate, principally second mortgages.  With the real estate downturn the company ran into trouble and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy February 10, 2008.  There are more details, an active comment section, and a link to the actual bankruptcy form on the Georgia Bankruptcy Blog. (And I thought I had a niche blog.)  Those proceedings are ongoing but the situation does not look good for churches and individuals that invested with Cornerstone thinking the money was going for church growth projects.

So, along with the Presbyterian Mutual Society, we will see how this one develops.

And finally, a great Biblical take on this from that great lectionary cartoon Agnus Day.

Women Clergy Controversy Continues In Ireland

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A quiet controversy in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland became headline news last Christmas when a sixty-year-old tradition broke down over the new female minister at a church.  The two churches in Portadown, First Presbyterian Portadown and Armagh Road, traditionally joined together for a Christmas service, alternating locations and having the visiting clergy preach.  However, in 2007 the invitation from the Rev. Stafford Carson at First Portadown specifically excluded the invitation for the Rev. Christina Bradley, pastor of Armagh Road, to deliver the message.  The church declined the invitation and the two congregations had separate services.  Under PC Ireland polity, when the ordination of women to be clergy was adopted an “opt-out” clause was also adopted so that ministers who believe women should not be ordained as clergy could prohibit women from preaching at their churches.

The Portadown Times now reports that negotiations to have the joint service this year have broken down.  According to the article Armagh Road suggested a pre-Christmas service of carols while First Presbyterian Portadown suggested the Christmas service with the message delivered by the host pastor.  Each church turned down the other’s offer so at the present time there is no common service planned this year.

In an interesting side-bar, the current Moderator of the General Assembly, the Right Rev. Dr. Donald Patton, grew up at Armagh Road Church.  I have seen no comment from him on this situation.  Last year then Moderator, the Rev. Dr. John Finlay, met with the ministers but was unable to work out a resolution.

PC Ireland Church Technology Camp Follow-up

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About two months ago I posted about a summer camp the Presbyterian Church in Ireland holds for youth who are interested in technology.  Well, that camp happened last week and if you want a report on their activities you can check out the entries by Alan in Belfast, one of the organizers/leaders of the camp.  He currently has two posts, one about Day One, and another with some more of their Creative Activities.